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McGillivray promises Income Property's biggest season yet

Whether it’s demolitions, second homes or even mould that looks like a sea creature, real estate investor Scott McGillivray is promising the fifth season of Income Property, returning on HGTV Thursday nights at 9 p.m. starting Sept. 8, will be the biggest yet.

“This year, we broke format a little bit,” explains McGillivray over coffee in Yorkville. “We went with the fun, the exciting, the high life. We’re not taking ourselves so seriously anymore.”

Which means, he explains, that you see the cast joking around, having fun and even making the odd mistake or two.

In fact, this season you’ll even see McGillivray planting a big kiss on a crewmember — his wife — as they work on his brother-in-law’s home in the second episode.

“He actually really needed my help,” says McGillivray, explaining that he had just bought his first home. “I found a way to get it done and kill two birds with one stone. I was going to do it on the side, then decided to film it.” And he recruited his family to help with the project so fans will get to meet his wife and in-laws.

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They’ve also changed the casting. In previous seasons, McGillivray and his team always helped people who had a rental suite in their home, while this year they’ve branched out to real estate investors.

“Any rental property will do,” he explains, adding that this season is a closer reflection upon what he actually does.

“We started doing duplexes, second properties. Now we’re helping people become real estate investors.”

Fans have been asking for that advice, he says, so they strive to offer a bit of information and instruction.

This loosening of the rules means that they’re also tackling bigger projects.

“Every year we up the ante a little,” he says. “Bigger projects, bigger budgets. We’re doing almost entire homes.”

For example, in the seventh episode we see a young couple whose house had to actually be condemned when they started work; they had to be moved from their home for five days and “we sent an environmental team in hazmat-style.”

While they had contained areas before, the mould in this home “was the biggest, ugliest fungus I’ve seen in my life,” he says. “We opened this wall and it looked like an octopus.” He said the jellyfish pink mould even shocked the environmental specialist. “He said, ‘holy cow, what’s that?’ ”

It had gotten so bad because the basement was tiled, locking in moisture and drawing it up the walls, then exacerbated by a leaking shower, a dryer venting into the wall and, as though that wasn’t enough, a toilet that had been flushing into the floor. “There was a sewage swamp under the toilet,” he says. “It was a nightmare. I was astonished.”

And there’s no rest for the crew. As they film the end of season five, they’re already casting and getting ready to begin work on seasons six and seven.

McGillivray says anyone with a property should apply and send in as much information, and as many photos, as possible. They’re looking for homeowners who show their personality and share their stories, noting that they’re not always looking for a sob story — just an interesting tale that will entertain and draw in viewers.

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